An Abundance of Streaming Services in 2019

Is watching TV your biggest hobby? Yes? Well, there’s no reason to be ashamed of that as it has been proven that people spend most of their time besides sleeping behind the tv or their smartphone. The only thing that might beat streaming services are platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram but when you think of it those social media platforms are also a sort of streaming services with a huge flow of messages from friends, acquaintances and the odd commercial.

Let’s look at some statistics

According to MarketWatch, who performed their research in the US, it turns out that adults spend more than 11 hours a day behind their TV, on their smartphone, listening to music or interacting with any other type of media. Holy Moses, 11 hours a day? I’m not sure about you but I work 8 hours a day, sleep 8 hours a day, and add to that say two hours for doing groceries, taking showers, and going back & forth between my work.

Now I’m not sure if they also include listening to the radio while I’m driving my car to work, because if not I wonder how people can spend that many hours, I didn’t realize the unemployment rate was that high in the US or perhaps I’m mistaken and it’s calculated with the weekends and holidays included. What a life.

Now maybe I’m not the correct person to complain as I’m talking about my youth when I said I worked 8 hours a day. Nowadays I run an online business so I spend in excess of 12-14 hours a day behind a screen but that’s simply because it’s my work, and after my work I like to relax a bit, watching some videos at Youtube, perhaps some Manga at Netflix, or if Netflix doesn’t have what I’m looking for I might open uTorrent and download something from the PirateBay.

Now let’s look at some streaming sites

If you’re a diehard TV fan you might’ve missed out on the new streaming sites that we have these days. After all, there is so much to see on HBO or Netflix that you don’t even realize that there are others as well. To give you a full overview, for the uneducated reader when it comes to online streaming, we will discuss all of them in short.

Starting with HBO Now

Probably one of the most popular streaming services as everytime my friends mention a certain series I try to look it up at Netflix only to find out that they don’t cover it and that I need to get a subscription at HBO Now for $14,99/month. Now that’s not an awful lot of money of course but as I’m already so addicted I simply refuse to sign up.

I do feel a little sad I had to miss out on Games of Thrones and Silicon Valley but perhaps I might be able to stream it through one of the illegal sites, the only downside of those is that they are offline most of the time. The Anime fans don’t have to worry that they lack HBO now as a quick Google reveals nothing and I don’t see them mentioned at AnimeWhiz either.

Netflix is Next Of Course

Not just because Netflix is one of the few that stream in Thailand, more so because I’m a huge Netflix fan myself and besides an abundance of action movies, witchcraft, demons, and other unearthly things like Manga and anime cartoons I simply love violence and they definitely didn’t disappoint me with Breaking Bad or the hilarious follow-up named Better Call Saul.

Heck those series are definitely worth a repeat view but I’m afraid my work won’t allow for it. What also helps is that Netflix is only 8 bucks a month or here in Thailand only 300 baht which is probably the equivalent.

Hulu for the True Anime Fans

If there is one streaming platform/service that drives the manga fans crazy it must be Hulu. Their subscription is priced the same as their main competitors at around eight to twelve bucks a month, hardly breaking the bank. I do have to admit I never heard about Hulu before so where that all of a sudden came from only God knows.

I just read that Hulu is only available for US residents so I guess I haven’t been missing out on anything after all. Keep in mind that Hulu is a typically American problem and although some say they are cheap (Netflix is actually cheaper) they stuff it full of commercials so it’s almost like watching TV. I still vouch for Netflix every single day because they are 100% free of advertisements, no wonder they are so popular across the world.

Summing It Up

I actually wanted to cover a few more streaming services like Amazon Prime Video, Crunchyroll, and Funimation which is truly heaven if you’re into manga/anime series but it’s getting late and my favorite series is starting on TV, one that isn’t available on streaming sites so wait for my next post where we will discuss the others in more detail.